Frank Haith inherited an NCAA tournament team from Danny Manning.

Rashad Smith, Shaq Harrison, James Woodard were the leading scorers as sophomores when Tulsa made the tournament two years ago. D'Andre Wright and Rashad Ray were key contributors not to mention Brandon Swannegan. There are others.

Two years of Haith. Two NITs. At best, the team got fractionally better each of the last two years compared to Manning's last season.

Seven of this year's eight man-rotation were seniors. If ever there was a time for Haith to guide Tulsa to a George Mason moment, it was this year.

Next year Tulsa returns one starter (Pat Birt) and 9th man Sterling Tapin. It's difficult to see how Tulsa improves from here as the Haith regime marches on.

That conference tournament run was through a weak and watered down CUSA field.
He left because he didn't feel we could compete in the AAC.

We have a couple of really good players in Shaq and Woodard. Birt came on strong for a while but Danny left us without any real 5 and we only had 3 bigs that could play.

Next year could be rough but we at least have a group of scorers coming in as well as some big men. Maybe our best recruiting class since Uzoh and Jordan.

We have some RS's, some, JC players, some frosh, and some returners.
Offensively we could actually be better, especially outside, but it will take some time for the team to find their identity. I'm excited about our big man coming in and how the RS's play underneath.

Next year will be virtually all Haith recruits and a young team so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. We don't really expect improvement after graduating nine seniors but the team could up being very solid and have some upsets but also get upset.

(03-12-2016 12:57 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  Frank Haith inherited an NCAA tournament team from Danny Manning.

Rashad Smith, Shaq Harrison, James Woodard were the leading scorers as sophomores when Tulsa made the tournament two years ago. D'Andre Wright and Rashad Ray were key contributors not to mention Brandon Swannegan. There are others.

Two years of Haith. Two NITs. At best, the team got fractionally better each of the last two years compared to Manning's last season.

Seven of this year's eight man-rotation were seniors. If ever there was a time for Haith to guide Tulsa to a George Mason moment, it was this year.

Next year Tulsa returns one starter (Pat Birt) and 9th man Sterling Tapin. It's difficult to see how Tulsa improves from here as the Haith regime marches on.

It's one thing for a Tulsa fan to start a thread like this... It's a completely different thing for a Houston fan to call out the Tulsa coach and program like this.

Especially since Tulsa lost to Houston, but Houston lost to...Tulane? Criticizing another school's performance when your own team didn't get it done...Wow.

I like Haith. The Tulsa-SMU battles have been entertaining. I think it was a positive that he replaced Manning. It'll be interesting to see how his recruits fare. SMU seems to be taking some good kids out of their backyard.

Probably too early to pull the trigger on whether or not Haith is good or not. It could just as easily be argued that Manning didn't recruit well in his two years here.

Let me tell you what else disappoints....

losing in the third OT on a 3/4 court shot that went unguarded....that kind of disappoints too.

Haith will do to Tulsa what Sampson will do at Houston if he stays

No one knows what Tulsa will be like next year but we won't be as young as most think losing 8 scholarship seniors. We have a transfer who sat out this year in addition to a forward who redshirted this year and will be a junior next season. We also have a JC transfer coming in. So we'll have one senior, three juniors (maybe 4), two sophomores, and the rest freshmen. Several of the freshman were the number one scoring option on their teams and should contribute. It the freshmen can get acclimated to D-1 play fairly quickly TU could be pretty good. On the other hand if the reverse happens they could be bad. I think most fans are hoping for the first and are anxious to see some new faces.

Yep its pretty much sucked to be a Tulsa fan the last two years.

In his defense he inherited a team without a true center or any size so he was forced to play small. Im not sure why he red shirted our only true center this year. If he didnt we would be an at large team.

Defensie Mental breakdowns against ORU (not guarding a last minute three) and Temple (again not fouling and staying zone when the only thing that could go wrong was a three) cost us the year.

Next year will be rough.

The state of TU hoops has been rough since Self left 16 years ago. I think our last at large bid was in 2002. Thats insane.

(03-12-2016 01:38 PM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  Let me tell you what else disappoints....

losing in the third OT on a 3/4 court shot that went unguarded....that kind of disappoints too.

That is how 4th and 27 feels

Tulsa is just fine. They had a bad game. If they had a little run they'd be the best things since sliced bread. Just look at UCONN. Best. Thing. Since. Sliced. Bread.

Memphis was forced to go with a small and fast lineup of guards in Tulsa's game with them. Tulsa got their bigs in foul trouble so Memphis had to do something different. Turns out it was the perfect lineup for Memphis to just rout Tulsa. Tulsa was not prepared for Memphis to play small. Looked like Tulsa had no game plan for playing a smaller, faster Memphis.

Im just so used to mediocrity at this point I dont like getting my hopes up.

Haith will go to Moody and beat SMU and Ill get excited and then drop 2 in a week to Memphis and crush my spirits.

Hopefully we have a good NIT run.

The Tommy Tuberville of college basketball if you will

(03-12-2016 09:29 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  Hopefully we have a good NIT run.

Yes - I hope your seniors go out with a bang. They deserve it.

(03-12-2016 01:38 PM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  Let me tell you what else disappoints....

losing in the third OT on a 3/4 court shot that went unguarded....that kind of disappoints too.

That's worse than losing in 1 overtime because of a 3/4 court shot at the end of the first half.

I will just say that they are paying him $1.3 million.
Big investment.

(03-12-2016 10:17 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  The Tommy Tuberville of college basketball if you will

LOL

#nailedit

(03-12-2016 11:30 PM)Hurricane Drummer Wrote:  

(03-12-2016 01:38 PM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  Let me tell you what else disappoints....

losing in the third OT on a 3/4 court shot that went unguarded....that kind of disappoints too.

That's worse than losing in 1 overtime because of a 3/4 court shot at the end of the first half.

haha yes...yes it is.

We like to lose in gut wrenching fashion.

See Butler, SMU, Iowa State, Tulsa, UCONN, etc etc etc.

(03-12-2016 09:27 PM)TulsaEye Wrote:  Memphis was forced to go with a small and fast lineup of guards in Tulsa's game with them. Tulsa got their bigs in foul trouble so Memphis had to do something different. Turns out it was the perfect lineup for Memphis to just rout Tulsa. Tulsa was not prepared for Memphis to play small. Looked like Tulsa had no game plan for playing a smaller, faster Memphis.

We beat yall with our big guys 2 weeks ago and our guards on Friday. It might be time to come to the realization that Memphis is a better team than Tulsa.